Ketogenic Diet

Are You An Athlete? Here's Why You Can Start Eating Like A Couch Potato

Carbs are bad, right? Of course. Everyone knows carbs are bad, duh, that’s why we avoid them like the plague. Depending on how you feel, carbs are either something to eat in moderation if you want to avoid getting fat, or they’re LITERAL POISON. The only problem is that until now, there was zero evidence to support those claims. Carb haters, rejoice: A bunch of scientists in Poland have found that a low-carb, high-fat diet may actually make you a better athlete.

Yes, provided you are a competitive off-road cyclist between the ages of 24 and 32, a long-term ketogenic diet might have some wonderful performance benefits. From the study abstract:

“The ketogenic diet stimulated favorable changes in body mass and body composition, as well as in the lipid and lipoprotein profiles. Important findings of the present study include a significant increase in the relative values of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and oxygen uptake at lactate threshold (VO2 LT) after the ketogenic diet, which can be explained by reductions in body mass and fat mass and/or the greater oxygen uptake necessary to obtain the same energy yield as on a mixed diet, due to increased fat oxidation or by enhanced sympathetic activation.”

Let’s parse that out into normal person-speech. “Ketogenic” refers to a diet high in fat but low in carbs that essentially forces the body to burn existing fat for fuel. Athletes/kinesiology students will recognize VO2max as the closest thing we have to an objective, scientific measure of “fitness.” The lactate threshold simply refers to the point at which lactic acid accumulates in the bloodstream - that burning feeling in your muscles during an intense workout.

According to the study, the high-fat/low-carb diet made the athletes go full-on Daft Punk in all regards: harder, better, faster, stronger.

Caveats: The study was small, with only eight subjects, all of them male. They were all also, as mentioned, competitive off-road cyclists with at least eight years of training. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that your body might not work the same way theirs do. Still, this is intriguing. Though the study didn’t intend to produce weight loss, it clearly states that some of the fitness benefits were in-part due to reductions in body and fat mass.

That’s a pretty solid endorsement for Atkins-type diets: Not only can the body survive in a ketogenic state, but it actually seems to thrive. So, throw an extra side of bacon on with lunch today. It’s what your body wants. Stay tuned for next week, when another study will inevitably come out stating that high-fat diets are bad for you.